


Hidden Truths

by theloversclub



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Child Neglect, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Pre-Canon, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 08:54:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11802720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theloversclub/pseuds/theloversclub
Summary: Richie Tozier did not like alcohol. How could he? So much pain and unhappiness in his life could be traced back to it. He had seen the highs and lows it brought, the effects of it the next day. He had helped his drunk mother to bed and thrown out empty bottles more times than he could count. He bitterly wished alcohol had never fucking been invented. That didn’t mean he never drank it.





	Hidden Truths

**Author's Note:**

> This is angsty as hell and trigger warnings are in the tags. 
> 
> This is based off Finn's description of Richie's homelife and with permission, some dope headcanons by @eddiesbadbreak @stanelyuriis and @eddiekasp on tumblr (go follow them, they are amazing.)

Richie Tozier did not like alcohol. How could he? So much pain and unhappiness in his life could be traced back to it. He had seen the highs and lows it brought, the effects of it the next day. He had helped his drunk mother to bed and thrown out empty bottles more times than he could count. He bitterly wished alcohol had never fucking been invented. That didn’t mean he never drank it.

It wasn’t something Richie was proud of, quite the opposite. When he was hurting badly enough to sneak something from the stash, he felt sick to the core and ashamed. He wanted to be nothing like his mother but here he was. This revoltingness is what kept him from drinking regularly, the fear of being his mother. He only turned to alcohol in true desperation. 

He had his first taste when he was 10. That was the day that Bowers beat the shit out of him for making some snarky comment. He had gone home with bruises all over his stomach and legs as well as a black eye and broken glasses. And he had been happy. His plan to provoke Bowers had worked. Step one in his newest scheme.

This would get a reaction out of them. They would be shocked, worried or angry or something, they would ask questions or ground him or comfort him and it would be brilliant. 

Richie had tried a lot of things to gain attention from his mam and dad, practicing jokes until his voice grew hoarse in the hope they might laugh someday, getting all A’s so they would be proud, swearing so much his friends nicknamed him Trashmouth to give them a reason to yell at him, and when he was 9, just not coming home one night to see what would happen- other than a fun night at the Denbroughs and some words about why he bothered to come back which made him flinch, not much.

His dad spent most of his time either in his dentist’s office or behind a newspaper in the armchair. He had a much older brother who Richie had never met, he watched ‘Cheers’ every week and that was about all Richie knew about his father. His most common remarks to Richie were ‘pass me that’ and ‘go buy me some cigarettes’. He'd taken him to the optometrists for his very first glasses but Richie's more recent visits were alone. His mam? She was either drinking, drunk as shit or sleeping off a hangover. That was just the way thing were in the Tozier house. 

When Richie was old enough to realize and accept the situation, it wasn’t all bad. His dad made quite a lot of money and Richie could buy sweets, comics, a good bike. He never went hungry, the fridge was well stocked (he did the shopping on Thursdays) and he could eat what he liked for dinner. He could listen to any music, stay at the arcade as late as he pleased - his friends were jealous of how ‘cool’ the Toziers seemed. Of course, they hadn’t met them, Richie never let them near the house. The closest they had been was on the opposite side of the street as they cycled home together. It was awkward about sleepovers and all that, but it was definitely for the best that nobody met his mom. They probably could go back after school to read some funnybooks or get some food as she’d be asleep, but he wasn’t going to risk it. She wasn’t someone Richie liked being around and if she ever talked to his friends, things could turn… ugly. 

Richie had some sepia toned memories of going to the park with his mom one sunny day, being pushed on the swings by her, being cheered as he completed the monkey bars… but that was almost certainly false. His closest moments with his mom was when he would hold her curls (which he had inherited, something he despised) back while she puked, when he helped her into the shower and into bed with the hope that one day she would thank him. She never had. Most days she protested, sometimes she was limp and went along with it.

He wondered when he was younger, more naïve, why his dad never helped his mother on those nights. They were supposed to love each other, yet his parents ignored each other as much as they did to him. Why had they even married in the first place? Had they always been this way? Did his mother start drinking to deal with his fathers closed off nature? Or had he given up on the family when she went off the rails? Richie didn’t know so much and he’d wondered a lot. He no longer thought understanding would fix the situation but he couldn’t stop the curiosity.

His mind drifted back to that day in 1986 again, when he’d started drinking. It sounded dramatic to say that ‘that was the day that changed everything’ but it sometimes felt that way. He could almost still feel the sun beating down on his bruised flesh, hear his uncracked voice say goodbye, feel the childish hope in his heart…

_(April, 1986)_

The front door opened quietly as Richie padded in, cheery goodbyes fresh in his ears, his own leaving a bad taste in his mouth. He slipped off his schoolbag, stuffed with comic books, candy wrappers and deep down, some much doodled in schoolbooks. He glanced in the mirror. His black eye had purpled magnificently but his mom was still asleep upstairs so it would go unappreciated for now. He had some time to kill and he was bursting with nervous energy. Between no glasses and one swelled up eye, TV was out of the question. He spent the next few hours holding some comics up very close to his right eye before eventually giving up and tapping his fingers anxiously at the table. When the front door opened, he looked up nervously.

“Um, hi Dad!” he called out, twisting his fingers together under the counter. He could just make out the shape of his father coming into through the doorway and pausing there. Richie wanted to say something but was scared to disturb the heavy blanket of silence. He waited for what would happen next. His dad moved toward him and his shoulders tensed. There was a pause before he opened his mouth.

“Go buy me some cigarettes” his dad grunted at him. He walked toward the sitting room. 

Richie’s shoulders slumped slightly. That wasn’t the reaction he wanted, but he wasn’t going to give up that easily. “I’m really sorry Dad but my glasses are broken. It wasn’t my fault, I swear…” he faltered as his dad closed the sitting room door in his face. He felt hopeless. He shook himself. He hadn’t gotten himself beaten up just to give up at the first few hurdles. 

“Dad, do we have any ice packs? It’s just for my eye …it really hurts…” He felt cheap and pathetic as he played up his injury. He was ignored as he loudly clattered around the kitchen, banging open the freezer and cupboards, occasionally saying ‘Ow!’. The pantomine became more and more frenzied as the sitting room remained deathly silent. That's when he heard the TV being turned out, to drown out him, to drown out his pain. He banged his arm against the fridge in a rush of anger and his next ‘ow!” was genuine. He winced and sat down. The old man was clearly not gonna respond. But his mother had always been more involved with him anyway, for better or worse. He’d give her a go, after going to get his dad's cigarettes, she'd have woken up by then. As if on cue, his thoughts were interrupted by a laugh. He stood up and turned around to see his mother smirking at him from the top of the stairs. 

“You got into a fight huh? Good for you! Glad to see you’re finally manning up. though you might want to work on ducking”. 

Richie was speechless. He couldn’t remember the last time his mom had just started speaking to him like this while sober. Trancelike, he nodded eagerly and slowly moved toward her, like a moth to the flame. 

“What was that you were saying? About your eye?”

It took him a while to answer. All he could think was that he couldn’t mess this up, he had to keep her talking. 

“Oh, it’s nothing, um I just wanted an ice pack…it’s a little sore.”

At this Maggie Tozier chuckled. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she held out the silver hip flask that was usually kept by her bed. Richie felt confused and looked at her, the inquisitiveness in his eyes rimmed by blue, the cost of this conversation.

“It’ll take the edge off” she whispered hoarsely. “You’ll like it.”

If Richie hadn’t been blinded by the rush of validation, he would have refused. He had decided a long time ago that he would never drink. But it was so rare that his mother had a lengthy, peaceful conversation with him and he wasn’t going to annoy her or disappoint her. She would be pleased with him if he just went along with it. How could he say no? He swallowed nervously and took the flask. 

_(Present)_

2 years later, he could still count the times he had been drunk with his fingers. He remembered every time with a mixture of anger, sadness and shame. They were shitty moments in a shitty life filled with some non-shitty people, who helped him forget the overall shittiness.

Richie’s best friends were Stan, Bill and Eddie. They were very different but Richie liked them all. He was close with them, he trusted them more than anyone else but none of them knew the whole truth. Richie was often called a class clown but people had no idea. What was a clown other than something full of jokes and humour, with something less appealing under the surface? Maybe that was why Richie had never liked clowns his whole life. He was loud and ridiculous at school, quiet and closed off (just like Dad) at home and Richie didn’t know what was real and what was an act. Was the class clown, his jokes, his voices all an act to cover up just a lonely boy? Or was it his real personality which his parents had never bothered to get to know? 

He could never be sure but he figured it was neither-the incessant jokester and quiet kid heating up microwave meals were one and the same, different sides of one person. They were part of him, not quite as separate as possible- Richie could come home in such good moods that he could chatter to his unresponsive dad and not give a shit, or he could go to school silent and sullen and smad (Richie loved that word an irrational amount) but most of the time he acted one way at school and another at home. That was the way it was in his house. He often imagined it differently, especially when looking at his friends’ families.

Stan had such a normal family that it made Richie sick with jealousy. He saw their honesty, their communication and their easy affectation and he hated himself for wanting to take that from Stan for himself because he wouldn’t wish this on anyone... well, actually Bowers was welcome to it. The Uris family was always very warm and inviting. Stan complained sometimes that his dad was hard on him, especially when it came to his religion and upcoming bar mitzvah. Even that made Richie secretly jealous, a parent caring too much, paying too much attention. God, what would he give to have his dad be on his case? At Stan’s 12th birthday, his parents had hugged him and gave him new binoculars which Stan had wanted for the past 6 months. Richie had laughed, congratulated Stan and excused himself to feel sad and shit in private for a few minutes. He liked Stan, he was a real chuckalicious guy but he could never talk to him about what was happening. And there was a voice in his head that said Stan might act understanding and sympathetic if he knew but secretly he'd think 'Oh of course, the Toziers can't put up with Richie's annoying high maintenance personality and now he's whining about it'. Worse, he might say it aloud and confirm what Richie feared. He could never get over that fear, he didn't think he'd ever be able to tell Stan. He used to feel the same way with Bill, until recently.

Bill was safer to talk to talk to about this stuff. In fact, now he actually understood what being ignored was like, ever since Georgie had disappeared in September along with his parents affectation. Bill had seemed surprised when Richie had come to him upset one day, since by then Richie was pretty good at using his humour as a shield, a façade but he had been a good listener and a good friend. Bill was a good guy. But he was occupied with Georgie’s disappearance, all the missing kids, and he still thought he could earn his parent’s love back by finding Georgie. He hadn’t given up yet, he didn’t know the crushing hopelessness. His problems were new. When he heard Bill talk about finding Georgie, he felt a lump in his throat. Richie didn’t have the heart to tell Bill how many times he had tried to do the same thing. The knowledge that his parents didn’t love him was… painful to say the least and he didn’t know if he could take Bill being crushed too. He didn't think Georgie was ever coming back but he would never tell Bill that. 

Eddie was different. While his problems were nothing like Eddie’s, who still loved his Ma, he was able to be there for Richie unlike anyone else. They had always had an odd friendship, full of teasing and bickering, their personalities clashing. Things had changed at some point, though he couldn’t put his finger on why. Suddenly, they had clicked into place and the ribbing had become a little more affectionate. They had started hanging out just the two of them in the early spring of ’88 and Eddie had replaced Bill as his best friend by the summer. It was soon after that that Richie had begun to feel something more for Eddie, had begun daydreaming about him, doodling him, looking at him a little too long, feeling anxious when he needed his aspirator and feeling irrationally angry when Bowers picked on him. He really liked spending time with Eddie, maybe even loved it. The happy moments were marred with fear though. He was worried about how close he was getting with Eddie. If Eddie ever found out about his parents or his little… drinking sessions, it would be horrible. The fear caused him to act even more manic than usual around Eddie. He was right to be worried, right to be scared. The memory of day when Eddie walked in on him was fucking horrible to remember even now. 

Richie hadn’t been in school that day. His mother had been very ill after drinking too much, which was only a matter of time, and Richie had called an ambulance. Within hours, his mother was out of the danger zone and he and his father had come home. He had gotten no sleep that night. His mother was not going to die. She was going to survive. Because of him. He had called the ambulance and that saved her life. Was that a mistake? Did he regret it? Would that make him a bad person if it did? Would it make him a stupid person if he didn’t? He cried on and off the night. He wanted to go to school to see his friends, who made him happy, who listened to him and talked to him and almost seemed to like him but he wasn’t up for it. He had to settle for second best, some of his mom’s vodka. 

As usual, it took him a while to reach breaking point. His stomach rolled every time he so much as smelt alcohol. He hated seeing himself drunk, hearing himself slur his words. He triggered his own painful memories every time that he did it yet when he hit a certain point, he eventually couldn’t stop himself. Vodka made him happy, maybe a second-rate substitute for being with his friends but a reliable one. It was disgusting but he would stop feeling so worthless and empty. The happiness was reliable but it came at a price he hated paying.

By the afternoon, Richie was coming off his buzz. He couldn’t drink too much, being only 12 years old, and he was close to hitting the low.

That's when Eddie had walked in, some worksheets in hand. Richie had looked up to seeing Eddie standing there, the sunlight outlining his still figure.

“Richie?”

The question was sharp enough to cut through the remaining mental fogginess and Richie saw himself exactly as Eddie was. Crouched in the corner, with a bottle beside him, the stench of it throughout the house. Richie was exposed for who he was- no better than his mother. Worse than her, even she hadn’t drank at 12, alone at home, hating herself for doing so, crying as she reached for the bottle. Richie would never feel so ashamed, so raw and so full of self-loathing again in his life. He felt like crying and vomiting, wanting to purge himself of the alcohol and weakness that put it there. Luckily, he contained himself enough to only do the first.

The rest was a haze with strong emotions and blurry details. He remembers Eddie tentatively touching his back. He is sure Eddie asked what was wrong but he was in no state to reply. He remembers Eddie panicking. He remembers being helped into bed and even now he remembers the burning hate he feels during it all, feeling more like his mother than ever before. Eddie held Richie’s curls back as he got sick and he thought that perhaps his mother had died in hospital and he had taken her place, his sick wish granted by God with a vengeful twist. He woke up in his cluttered room, thankfully alone. 

When his headache had died down, he had called Eddie on the phone and arranged to meet up in the Barrens. It had been an goddamn uncomfortable conversation. Richie had tried to lighten the mood as usual, cracked a lot of jokes, used a voice but this time it was useless. He supposed he could have fed Eds some bullshit but even if he had believed it,iIt would have felt wrong to lie to him after his help. Instead, he revealed some painfully honest things he hadn’t told anyone, definitely not everything but more than he had thought he would ever tell anyone. Eddie had wanted to do something to help with his parents. Richie wouldn’t let him. Eddie explained to him how negative the effects of alcohol were at this age and Richie promised that it was a rarity. He wanted to help Richie when he was drunk like he had the day before but Richie would never let that happen again in a thousand years.

Eddie had seemed equally sad and angry (“smad” Richie thought). He had grown only more so and the frustration was evident in his highly expressive face (he always had worn his emotion on his sleeve.)

_(September 1988)_

“Richie…I just don’t know what to do” Eddie eventually confessed, his soft brown eyes brimming with tears. Richie’s throat tightened up- he hated doing this. He wanted to comfort Eddie but he continued speaking. 

“I want to help but I don’t know how. This is fucked up Richie okay? This is really fucked up...your parents are assholes. And this is shitty. God, I don't know what to say, I never thought....”

He forced a smile and said “Just do a couple things for me Eddie, I hate asking but- “

“Tell me Tozier, you dipshit”

“Promise not to tell anyone anything. Never come near my house again-”

He was interrupted here by some light objections which he ignored.

“and just… keep being my friend. Act normal around me. This has been going on for years and my parents have always been like this. Like you said, you never guessed because it's not a big deal. I’m fine like nearly all the time”

“Richie, don’t be stupid. Of course I’m your friend. But I know you are not fine, that’s bullshit. Don’t lie to me anymore? I understand why you did but you don’t have to. Just… I won’t act differently around you okay? But you gotta come to me when you need to talk about… this.”

Richie looked away from Eddie and around the lush flora of the Barrens. 

“It’s nice down here” he thought absently. He felt Eddie’s eyes on him and in any other situation, he might have flushed. Now he was just trying to think whether this was a good idea and what Eddie would do if he just walked away and never spoke to him again. Would he start talking to Stan or Bill? What would they do? There was really no point in even thinking about this. There was just no way that Richie could abandon his friends like that. His life would be much more unpleasant. If it wasn’t for them, he’d definitely drink a lot more. Was that selfish? Probably but he couldn’t do much about it. There was really only one option.

“Alright… Eds”

"Richie, how many fucking times!”

_(Present)_

So as horrible as it had been, in the end maybe it had brought them closer together. At least he could be honest to someone, which was refreshing. 

Richie hadn’t drunk since that day. There was one close call but he remembered how he felt when Eddie walked in and he put the bottle back in the cabinet and cycled to the arcade. Sure, the arcade couldn't solve ALL of his problems (although, he had no proof that it couldn't) and neither could Eddie. It wouldn’t be put off forever but life was still pretty good right now, something to smile at. 

Things were a little odd with his friends this year. Stan’s bar mitzvah was clearly stressing him out, Bill was fanatical about Georgie’s disappearance, Bowers was steering clear of Bill but had so such restrictions with the others but things were… good with Eddie. His fears had been unjustified, if anything Eddie knowing had only made them closer. He still acted the same around him as he promised, still rolled his eyes at his voices, corrected him when he was wrong, still was just as adorably obnoxious as before. This made Richie want to be more honest with Stan and Bill but clearly they had enough going on.

There had been a recent memorable moment where Richie had threatened to tickle Eddie and a distressed Eddie had panicked and thrown his aspirator at Richie, striking him on the forehead. Stan had fallen over a sofa laughing. Even Bill had laughed, which was rare nowadays. It was moments like these that Richie felt most alive in. Surrounded by laughing friends. It had been a good day, their group of four was still strong. But he wondered what 1989 would bring. Hopefully enough good times to balance out the bad.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry to do that to my baby guys, but don't blame me- this is based in canon!
> 
> Credit for the drinking headcanon to @eddiesbadbreak @stanelyuriis and @eddiekasp on tumblr (go follow them, they are amazing). I'm @arcadetozier on tumblr and @retrojeremy on twitter!
> 
> Please leave a comment if you enjoyed!


End file.
